What is “Substitutionary Atonement” provided by Jesus our Messiah?

Substitutionary Atonement is first pictured for human kind in Genesis 3:21 subsequent Adam’s compromise with evil, disobedience, at the behest of his wife, Eve.

Elohim, Himself, shed innocent blood and clothed Adam and his wife, Eve, the representatives of human kind, in an imputed, gifted, robe of righteousness in order to cover their sin and shame while Elohim simultaneously rejected Adam’s vain attempt at self-righteousness, works, to cover his own shame via the application of fig leaves. This is the first picture of the Gospel of Grace in Scripture.

Genesis 3:15 prophesies that One would come from the seed of the woman, not the seed of the man which carries and passes the Adamic sin-nature (Romans 5:12), and this anointed One would enter into conflict with Satan and defeat Satan. Genesis 3:21, as noted above, was to be the “battle strategy” by which the Anointed One, born of the seed of the woman, would defeat the works of Satan; that is, shedding innocent blood and thereby providing blood atonement for the covering of sin for all who would believe that Messiah had accomplished this divine imperative.

The Mosaic Law of blood sacrifices (Leviticus 17:11) modeled this prophecy where a spotless lamb would be slain for the sins of Israel’s children in recognition of the “Passover” where the blood of a lamb was painted on the door posts and lintel signaling to the “death angel” to “pass over” that home and spare the first born child which essentially freed the Hebrew slaves in Egypt.

These prophecies all came to fruition 4000-years subsequent Genesis 3:21 outside the Gates of Jerusalem in a place called “Golgotha” or “the place of the skull.” It was here that Jesus, “the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World” (John 1:29) offered Himself as a substitutionary “blood atonement” for the sin of mankind (Matthew 26:27-28).

The focus of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that anyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah who died, who shed His innocent blood, for the atonement of their sin, the forgiveness of their sin, the one so believing receives eternal life (John 3:16)

We know that “nothing impure is permitted to enter the Kingdom of God” (Revelation 21:27) and we are commanded to be perfect as the Father in Heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). We also know that no one can be perfected by vain attempts to keep the Laws or traditions or days or diets of the Old Covenant because one violation of the Law makes the transgressor guilty of violating all Law (James 2:10); therefore, how does one born of Adam’s sin-nature (Romans 5:12) find “perfection” and acceptance by God/Elohim the Father?

Answer: Substitutionary Atonement

The Holy Spirit explains how one attains perfection in the Father’s eyes in Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 5:21). When one believes that Jesus is Messiah who died for them, the Father imputes, gifts, the righteousness and perfection of Jesus over their life, eternally, and the Father agrees by New Covenant promise (Hebrews 8:12) to remember their sins no more; in other words, the Father promises to not see the sins of those who have trusted in Jesus as Messiah, the Spotless Lamb without sin, but the Father only sees the Son’s perfection over them and the Father declares them “not guilty” and welcomes them into the Family of Elohim while Sealing and Guaranteeing this divine promise through the gifting of the indwelling Holy Spirit, forever (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Christians, believers in Jesus as Messiah, are gifted the righteousness of Jesus over their life by Covenant promise thereby making the believer positionally “perfect” in the Father’s eyes, not by works, or efforts, strivings, of the Christian but as a Gift of Grace through Faith in the divine, spotless Lamb of God, Jesus Christ our Messiah (1 Peter 1:18-19).